


Five Bets Eliot Lost (Mostly On Purpose) And One He Didn't

by leiascully



Category: Leverage
Genre: Cooking, Eliot Spencer's Cooking, Eliot Spencer-centric, Eliot doesn't want to get in the way, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, Interracial Relationship, Multi, Pining, Queer Themes, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25468261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Eliot doesn't really understand why Parker and Hardison keep making bets with him, but he's going to see where this goes, and along the way, he's going to cook a lot of food.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker, Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 158
Kudos: 359





	1. Triple Chocolate Cookies

**Author's Note:**

> This story is finished and I'll be posting it in five chapters!
> 
> Timeline: Season 5  
> A/N: My wife coffeesuperhero would like you to know that this story needed more cake and that chapter 4 is very upsetting to her.

"Bet I can beat you home," Parker said, four blocks away from the Bridgeport, and took off before Eliot could even say anything. He ran after her, but she was so light on her feet he had no hope of catching her. Her blonde ponytail whipped in the breeze like a taunt as he pushed himself harder. By the time he got to the Bridgeport, she was already stretching on the patio steps. 

"You cheated," he panted, hands on his knees. 

She grinned at him, her breathing already almost even. "I didn't cheat. I'm strategic."

"Hardison teach you that?" He squinted up at her and made himself stretch. He'd regret it if he didn't. 

Parker shook her head. "Nate." 

"Of course," Eliot grumbled. "You know, I think they lied. There ain't any honor among thieves."

"You're just mad you lost," she said matter-of-factly. 

"I didn't even bet," Eliot said. "You were gone already."

She booped the end of his nose. "Don't be a sore loser. You just have to make cookies for me. That's not hard."

"I would have made cookies for you anyway," Eliot complained. "All you have to do is ask. No need to humiliate me first."

"This was more fun," she told him. "And you're not humiliated. You have an opportunity to improve."

"I'm in hell," he said to no one in particular. 

"I don't know why you're complaining," Parker said. "It's not like I punched you." She bounced into the Bridgeport. Eliot finished stretching and sighed to himself. He looked up at the building. All that brick, right on the corner: it was a great spot for a pub. And Hardison was going to offer up a menu that no one in their right mind would order, and beer that tasted like he'd brewed it with pond water. 

It wasn't like Eliot didn't see what was happening. He'd been bribed before, or at least people had tried. He'd usually taken the bait and done whatever he was going to do anyway. He wasn't quite sure what he was being bribed to do this time, aside from lend his considerable expertise to the complete overhaul of the Bridgeport's food and drink offerings. Which he would have done anyway, but it was kinda cute the way Hardison thought he was slick leaving deliberately terrible menus around just so that Eliot would see them and have to fix them. Maybe Hardison just didn't want to bother finding a new chef when he had one basically in-house, but that didn't make a lot of sense. There was nothing Hardison loved more than researching people on the internet, except maybe Parker and nerd shit.

He sighed and went in through the pub to the back room, waving to the kitchen as he went. They nodded back, which meant no fires to put out. Eliot went to hit and kick the heavy bag for a while. That usually solved his confusion. He'd had more than one revelation from punching things, like the vibrations buzzing up his arm shook his thoughts loose. This time he just wore himself out all over again, ending up sweatier than before but no more clear on what the hell Parker and Hardison were after. This was what he got, hanging around with thieves. There was always an angle.

At least cookies were easy. A shower, and cookies: two things he could handle. He cleaned himself up and sauntered off to the kitchen. He loved the kitchen in this place. Whoever had put it in had done a hell of a job, although he wouldn't put it past Hardison to have had it redone before Eliot had arrived. More Eliot bait, but at least that part made sense: the nicer the kitchen, the more likely he was to cook for them. This one was set up just right. The flour and sugar and baking powder were all in the places he would have expected them to be, even if he hadn't put them there. He lingered over the selection of chocolate chips and then decided he'd put them all in. Triple chocolate chip cookies: white, milk, and dark. A little something for everyone.

He measured and creamed and folded and dropped. The cookies went into the oven and came out looking beautiful, crispy on the edges and soft in the middle just like Eliot liked them. He lifted the parchment paper off the trays and set the cookies on racks to cool. 

"Yes, they're done," he said without turning around.

"So I can eat them?" Parker asked, scraping the spoon he'd used to shape the cookies around the inside of the bowl to get the last traces of cookie dough. He'd left it for her instead washing up as he went. 

"They'll fall apart unless you let them cool a little," he told her. 

"Hardison!" she called. "Cookies!"

"Do you want milk?" Eliot asked. "I got the cream top."

She looked shifty. "Yes." 

He poured her a glass of milk as Hardison came into the kitchen. "Make it two, would you?" he said. "I heard there were cookies."

Eliot got another glass. "I don't recall losing any bets with you."

"I just figured since you're such a nice person," Hardison said, leaning on his elbows on the counter, "that you wouldn't mind granting my simple request." He pulled the glass toward him and reached for the cookies. "Mmm."

"'S hot," Parker said, inhaling around a mouthful of cookie. "Ahh." She sucked melted chocolate off her finger. 

"I told you to wait," Eliot said, but he snagged a cookie for himself and dunked it briefly in Hardison's milk.

"Hey hey," Hardison said, cupping his hand over his glass. "Crumbs, man. Cookie etiquette is bite, sip." 

Eliot shrugged. "Guess that's the price you pay for homemade cookies when you didn't outrun me." 

Hardison nodded. "That's fair." He took another mouthful of cookie. "Damn, these are good. You use that sea salt I got you?"

"Yeah," Eliot said. "I think it really adds dimension."

Hardison held out his hand for a fist bump. "It really does, man. Nice work."

"You should lose bets more often," Parker said cheerfully.

"I told you," Eliot said, "all you have to do is ask." He had a weird sense of sort of déjà vu as he said it, like he'd said it before, or like there was something more meaningful about the words than he could immediately place.

"I told _you_ ," Parker said, gazing at him. "It's more fun this way."

"You know how good ill-gotten gains taste," Hardison said, taking another cookie. "Triple chocolate, huh? You're spoiling us." 

"Three different kinds of chocolate," Parker said happily. "Just like us." 

"If we were cookies." Eliot took another cookie. He was pretty proud of them. For just cookies, they'd really turned out well.

"Put it on the menu," Hardison suggested. "Call it the triple threat." 

"Three's company," Eliot countered. 

"Ménage à trois," Parker said. "Or is that something else."

"That," Hardison said, "is definitely something else. I thought you spoke French."

Parker shrugged. "Guess I misunderstood that one."

"Not everything I cook is for the menu," Eliot said. "Some of it's just for us. Makes it more special not to share it with everyone else." 

"That's very sweet," Hardison said. "You know that? It really is." 

"Yeah, well, don't tell anybody," Eliot said, looking away. "Can't have people thinking I'm soft or something." 

Hardison and Parker exchanged a glance they thought he didn't see. "Of course not," Parker said. "You're Eliot Spencer."

"And don't you forget it," he told her. "People know not to mess with anybody who's with me."

"I do like that part," Hardison said. "Except when it gets me thrown in a pool."

Eliot pulled a face. "Yeah, well. Sometimes there's collateral damage."

"Yeah," Parker said thoughtfully, "but sometimes there's cookies." She took another one and dunked it in her milk. Hardison shook his head. "I like that better."

"Stick with me," Eliot told her, leaning in over the counter to mirror Hardison. "I'll kick ass and make cookies for you." 

"And me," Hardison said seriously. "I need a little sweetness in my life too."

"You as in both of you," Eliot said. "Obviously."

Hardison leaned in closer. "I like black and whites. And snickerdoodles. And anything with peanut butter. Just for future reference."

"I'll take that under advisement," Eliot told him. 

Parker and Hardison looked at each other again and there was something smug about it. Had to be one of those couple things. Eliot leaned back. He wasn't gonna get involved in any of that. They had each other. He had cookies. It was fine.


	2. Three Garlic Pasta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot's sense of direction is tested, and also his patience.

"I bet you that you cannot get from here to the recycling center without directions," Hardison said. The three of them were shoulder to shoulder in Eliot's truck, and the bed was packed with glass and cardboard the regular service hadn't picked up for whatever reason. 

"Why wouldn't I use directions?" Eliot asked.

"No reason," Hardison said. "I just recall a certain time we got captured by a local militia and you told me you basically had a compass in your head and perfect recall. We've been out there, what, five times? Bet you don't have the route memorized."

"I told if you want cookies, I'll just make you some," Eliot said. 

"Nah, man, this isn't about cookies," Hardison told him. "This is about you and your navigational skills."

Parker raised her hand. "I want cookies."

"And what happens if I lose this bet?" Eliot asked.

"I mean I do want you to cook for us," Hardison said. "It's so low stakes we all basically win no matter what happens. Except you, because you are going to lose."

"Winning makes the food taste better," Parker said. 

"Fine," Eliot said, scowling at them. He put the truck into gear. "Let's go save the planet or whatever."

He could get there, of course. They'd been in Portland a while now, and he did have a good memory for directions. But he didn't understand why the hell they were on this betting kick now, or why they kept giving each other secret couple looks about it, which he'd have minded less if they weren't all in such a confined space he couldn't miss them. Come to think of it, he didn't know why they came to help with the recycling. They all knew he was perfectly capable of doing it himself. Parker did like the way the glass smashed in the big bins, but Parker could smash glass on her own time if she wanted to and he'd be more than willing to cook them dinner. He had been planning on it anyway. It was a Wednesday night. They were between jobs. Felt like it might be nice to do something together. It wasn't like it was easy to go out and make other friends under half a dozen aliases.

Maybe it was some kind of sex thing. Although if it was, he didn't know why he was involved. He definitely wasn't having sex with either of them. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind more than once or twice. Anyway, those seemed like the kind of bets they'd make with each other, not with him. 

Maybe they just wanted him to look foolish. He didn't really think either of them needed that kind of boost to their ego, but Hardison could have had a bad week, he guessed. Or maybe it was some game they were playing: racking up points on him because he was a neutral party. Whatever it was, he'd figure it out eventually.

He glanced at Hardison and deliberately took a wrong turn. Well, it was the right turn if they wanted to get to the pretty little park he'd found a few weeks in. It just wouldn't take him to the recycling center. Hardison smirked, staring at the screen of his phone, and Parker cut her eyes at him and then looked away. 

"Aw, hell," he said when they got to the park. "I guess I got my turns mixed up." To his ears, it was as piss-poor a job of acting as they'd seen Sophie do as Lady Macbeth, but Hardison and Parker seemed satisfied.

"It's okay," Hardison said in a tone Eliot was sure he thought was gracious but sounded condescending as all hell. "I got this. You just let me lead, baby."

Best case scenario it was a sex thing.

"I never get lost on my own," Eliot told them. "Must be something about having the two of you packed in here."

"Aww, are we messing with your internal calibrations?" Hardison said. "You know, last time, we were handcuffed together. We could try that. Maybe something about the conductivity of the metal amplified the genius of my brain and powered up yours. Or maybe it was really lucky we went back to the camp."

"I think I have some handcuffs," Parker said, digging in the pockets of her jacket. "Give me a sec." 

"I don't need to be handcuffed," Eliot said. "Just tell me where to go."

"Left at the next light," Hardison said. They drove out to the recycling center, Eliot careful not to change lanes or signal for a turn until Hardison told him to. They pitched all the recycling into the bins together and piled back into the truck. 

"I think I can make it home," Eliot said. 

"All right," Hardison said, "but I'm bringing up the directions just in case. I don't want to get back too late for you to make dinner."

Eliot sighed. "Trust me. You'll have dinner." 

"I'm not eating at nine p.m.," Hardison said. "This isn't Europe." 

"You already won," Parker said. "Leave him alone. He's probably sad his compass doesn't work anymore."

"My compass works fine," Eliot grumbled. He checked the speedometer and wished he could drive faster, but the city traffic was snarled around the truck. "Talk about something else."

"Once again, machine defeats man," Hardison said, shaking his head. "We remain the underdog." 

"So what are you making for dinner?" Parker asked Eliot. 

"Mm," Hardison said. "A romantic dinner cooked by our personal chef. Can't beat it."

"You'll know when you see it," Eliot told her.

"No ideas yet, huh," she said. 

"We can't have cookies for dinner," he said. "And I'm not going to the store just to buy food for you when you bet against me." 

"If you could even find the store," Hardison murmured.

Eliot wasn't sure, but he thought Parker poked Hardison in the side. Hardison subsided. They didn't really have to be so damn couple-y about it all, Eliot thought. Two against one wasn't fair. He'd make another dinner with three of something in it to remind them. Three was better than two when it came to the work they did. They needed him, in their lives if not in their relationship. 

He got back to the Bridgeport just fine, of course, because he'd known where he was going the whole time. Hardison and Parker cleared out pretty quick to do whatever it was they were going to do. Eliot went to the kitchen. He opened the pantry and then the fridge, staring into the depths as if the ingredients were going to start speaking to him. He weighed lemons in his hands, picked up a wedge of cheese, considered the pale puckered skin of the chicken he'd gotten at the farmer's market. Finally, he took out the eggs and closed the fridge. He grabbed a bulb of garlic from the bowl on the counter. If he was going to have to cater their little date night, he was going to do it all wrong. Three garlic pasta sounded about right. He'd roast some of the garlic, sauté some of it, and add some slivers of fried garlic at the end. Asparagus as a side ought to complete the meal. They'd be aromatic afterwards for certain. 

He got the oven going first thing, poured a little olive oil over the garlic bulb and put it in to roast. Then he measured a pile of flour out onto the counter and added the eggs to the well in the middle. Kneading the pasta dough relieved some of his frustration. It wasn't as cathartic as working with the heavy bag, but it required his attention. There was a lot of nuance to dough. He liked the way it changed under his hands, the feeling of rightness to it that was all instinct. He put the dough aside to rest and turned his attention back to the garlic. He peeled a handful of cloves, minced up some of it and slivered the rest. After that, he chopped parsley by the handful, until the whole kitchen smelled green and fresh, with sweet notes from the roasting garlic. Wine - he needed a nice dry white for the sauce. They had a limited selection in the apartment, mostly just what he used for cooking, so he found something suitable after a brief search. 

Eliot took a break, leaning against the counter. He wiped his parsley-flecked hands on the towel he'd slung over his shoulder. There was still the bet to think about. Maybe Hardison was inspired by Parker's success, but Eliot still didn't really see the appeal. They were competitive sometimes, sure, but usually when it came to a job, not their regular life. He'd always been adjacent to their relationship, but they'd never been this obnoxious about it. Maybe they thought he was just going to plate up two meals and leave. Fuck a bunch of that, he thought. If he had to do the work, he was going to stay and eat no matter how sappy they got, and he wasn't going to play maitre d' either. No sir, not Eliot Spencer. He was going to crash their date. He'd dress up and everything. He checked the oven. There was still 45 minutes on the timer for the garlic. That was long enough. 

He sighed and poked at the dough. It felt soft and resilient. He got out the pasta machine and rolled the dough out into thin sheets a chunk at a time, patiently holding it taut so it didn't stick to itself. It took practice, to be gentle and firm at the same time. He'd had to work at it. He changed out the attachment and cut the sheets into noodles, twisting them into little nests on the counter. It wouldn't hurt them to sit there and dry out a little while. He went to his room and shaved down to his preferred level of stubble. It wouldn't make any sense to cook in his nice clothes, but he stripped down to his undershirt and picked out a nice button down. The slacks he could put on, and the dress shoes; he wasn't as likely to get anything on those. He even dabbed on a little cologne, even though it was likely to get drowned out by the scent of garlic. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a pretty good-looking man. They'd be lucky to have him crash their date. 

Eliot took his nice shirt back out to the dining room and slung it over a chair. A few steps more to the kitchen. He put a pot of salted water on to boil and got out a big pan and let it heat up, then added olive oil. He fried the slivers of garlic until they were crisp and then let them rest a little on a paper towel. The minced garlic went in to sauté at a slightly lower heat. He took the roasted garlic out of the oven and replaced it with trimmed, salted, and peppered asparagus drizzled with olive oil and a loaf of bread from the neighborhood that he'd sliced partway through and stuffed nice butter into. The water was boiling. He put the pasta in, poured wine over the sautéd garlic, squeeze the roasted garlic out of its skin into the pan, and let it all get acquainted. The pasta came out of the water and went into the pan along with the parsley he'd chopped earlier, a little flaked red pepper, and some of the nice salt. He ground pepper over the whole thing and gave it a stir. 

"Dinner's ready," he texted them, and pulled the asparagus and the bread out of the oven. He plated up three portions of pasta, added the fried garlic, and took them to the table, then shrugged on his clean shirt. Bread on a cutting board and a knife for it. Three water glasses. Three sets of silverware. The nice cloth napkins he'd been planning on using for Thanksgiving or Easter, some nice big holiday dinner. He even put out a couple of candles and lit them. Hell, he'd make his own holiday. Ruining his colleagues' (partners'? best friends'?) date had to be some kind of occasion.

"Something smells incredible, man," Hardison said, coming in with Parker behind him. There was a bottle of wine in his hand and it looked like something Eliot would have chosen. Parker had a takeout container of what appeared to be tiramisu. They'd both changed into something dressier since Eliot had seen them, and he smirked internally. Yeah, it was a date, and now he was crashing it.

"I brought dessert," Parker announced. She peered at the container. "I didn't make it, but it's delicious. I might have eaten part of it earlier. I'm just gonna put it in the fridge."

"Wow," Hardison said, looking at the table. "Amazing." 

"Sorry I can't just leave you to it," Eliot said. "I'm a little hungry myself. I'm sure you won't mind if I join you."

"Not at all," Hardison said. He handed Eliot the bottle of wine. "This okay?"

Eliot read the label. It was a damn fine bottle of wine, the kind of bottle he'd buy if he wanted to impress someone. He scrubbed his face with one hand. "More than okay."

"Okay, good," Hardison said, grabbing wine glasses and the corkscrew. "The guy at the store said it would be fine, but I never know if they're lying to me about the notes of fruit and the tannins and whatnot."

"I know you and wine," Eliot said. He took the corkscrew from Hardison. "Let me just get this open and breathing." 

Parker was already at the table. "I'm starving. Let's eat."

"Don't rush the man," Hardison chided her. 

"No, she's right," Eliot said, tucking the bottle of wine between his thighs and uncorking it. "It's not gonna stay hot for long. Fresh pasta gets kind of sticky if you leave it." 

"You made the pasta?" Parker said, her eyes wide. She looked at her plate and back up at the two of them with a pleading expression. 

"Oh, hell yes," Hardison said. "Forget the wine. Let's eat." 

"We're not forgetting the wine," Eliot said, "but yeah, eating is a good idea." He brought the wine over to the table and poured them each a glass. Parker was practically vibrating. Eliot motioned with the wine bottle. "Go on. Get into it."

Before he'd even sat down, Parker was already jamming her fork into the pasta and lifting it to her mouth. She chewed, sitting very still, and then moaned.

"That good, huh, baby?" Hardison said, twirling a few noodles around his own fork.

"Amazing," Parker groaned as Hardison took a bite. "Eliot, I think you're a wizard." 

"This is like sell-your-soul kind of magic," Hardison said. "I mean, goddamn, Eliot."

"Thank you," Eliot said. He put his napkin on his lap. He had date manners, when he bothered to use them. Hardison and Parker were already eating and making a lot of appreciative noises. Eliot shrugged to himself and dug in too. He'd done a good job. 

"So good," Parker moaned. She eyed the rest of the pasta on her plate like she was calculating how fast she could eat it versus how long she wanted it to last.

"This is basically a nuclear amount of garlic but I am loving every minute of it," Hardison said. "Eliot, would you mind cutting a slice of bread for me?"

"No problem, man," Eliot said. He sawed off a buttery hunk of bread and handed it to Hardison. Hardison smiled at him, a real genuine smile that turned up at one corner. 

"Me too," Parker said quickly. "Please."

Eliot cut a piece for her too. She smiled at him just like Hardison had, all sunny and bright. Eliot sat there, being grinned at, not at all certain what the hell was happening anymore. He was on a date. He was on _their_ date. He was...part of their date? Nah. He was imagining things. Parker and Hardison had gone back to their plates, unraveling the strands of pasta and cutting bite-sized pieces of asparagus. Eliot took a sip of wine to try to clear his thoughts. Even without enough time to breathe, it was fantastic. Definitely the kind of wine he would have brought to a date. And Hardison and Parker liked wine, but they didn't like wine that much. 

Parker was slowing down on the pasta. She had a few bites left and Eliot could see her measuring them with her eyes with an expression of regretful longing. "Parker, there's more in the pan," he said, and her face lit up. 

"There better be enough for me," Hardison told her, and she wrinkled her nose at him.

"I'll share," she said. 

"That was gonna be lunch tomorrow," Eliot said to nobody. 

"I'll buy you lunch," Hardison told him. "Hell, I'll take you to Italy for lunch, 'cause I sure as hell can't cook this."

"I'm gonna call that in sometime," Eliot told him. "You can't make a promise like that and not come through."

"Please do," Hardison said, looking levelly at Eliot with that little smile on his lips again. 

"Ooh, let's go tomorrow," Parker said. 

"Not tomorrow," Eliot said. "I'm saving it." 

"Never let it be said that I don't treat people graciously after I win bets with them," Hardison said, and winked. Eliot took another sip of wine. He was no longer even remotely sure what the hell was happening. Parker got up to serve herself more pasta and Hardison followed her. Eliot kept working through what was left of his and drinking his wine. He used a piece of bread to soak up some of the garlic. They were whispering behind him, though he couldn't hear anything but the hush of their voices. Probably arguing about the pasta, but the way the night was going, it could have been anything. Maybe they were going to kidnap him. Maybe they needed a big damn favor. Maybe they were going to proposition him and tear all his clothes off.

His brain shorted out a little at that last idea and he drank some more wine to wash it away. When they came back, they acted totally normal, if it was normal to be two people dressed up for date night with a third person who wasn't part of that. They talked about normal stuff. They drank wine. Eventually they piled all the dinner dishes in the sink and Parker broke out the tiramisu, and they ate that and finished off the wine. Eliot felt warm and content. There was just something about a home-cooked meal that made a person feel nourished. He hoped they felt it too. He cared for them, even when they were acting strange. 

"Wanna watch a movie with us?" Parker asked, sticking her finger in the tiramisu container and licked the cream off. 

"Not _Star Wars_ ," Eliot said. He'd been half-thinking about going out and picking up a date of his own, but the amount of garlic he'd eaten made that pretty much a moot point.

Hardison scoffed. "I do watch other movies."

"No _Star Trek_ either," Eliot said. "And no superheroes." 

"Fine," Hardison grumbled. "Parker suggested it. Parker picks the movie." 

"Ooh," she said, wiggling her shoulders. " _Ocean's Eleven_."

"Again?" Hardison said.

"It's hilarious!" Parker said, laughing that snorty laugh. "I mean, it's not as funny as _The Italian Job_ , but I like the guy who eats all the time."

"And Julia Roberts," Eliot said. "Can't go wrong." 

"I figured you for a Sandra Bullock man," Hardison said, shaking his head. 

"I can't like more than one person?" Eliot asked. "They've got very different, very distinctive qualities." 

"I guess it's up to you," Hardison said, and he and Parker looked at each other with another secret smirk. 

"Just put the movie on," he told them. 

They watched the movie. Parker insisted he sit on the couch with them, and she cuddled up between him and Hardison. They didn't do any unbearable couple stuff, just sat there with Hardison's hand a little high on her thigh and Parker's fingers on the back of his head, rubbing lightly over the short fuzz of Hardison's hair. Eliot kind of wished she'd play with his hair, but it wasn't like he was going to ask. He didn't think they were doing it to taunt him anyway. It was just that kind of unconscious touchy thing people in love did. He hadn't done that in a long time. Every time he touched somebody, it was deliberate, whether to seduce them or to put them out of commission. He didn't usually miss it, but tonight was already strange. 

Parker swung her feet up onto the couch and tucked them against Eliot's thigh. They were cold even through his pants. He pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over her calves and feet, pushing all the edges in so there weren't any gaps. She smiled at him and tipped her head onto Hardison's shoulder. 

"She getting you with the feet?" Hardison asked, still watching the movie. 

"Yeah," Eliot said. "But I can take it."

"I don't understand how they're always like ice," Hardison said. "She works out more than I do. You'd think that would help the circulation."

"Warm," Parker said dreamily. She tugged the loose end of the blanket up over herself. 

"You let me know if it gets to be too much for you," Hardison said. "I put emergency fuzzy socks in the basket under the coffee table."

"He's fine," Parker said. "He's tough. Besides, he promised to take care of us. He didn't say except for my feet."

"I can take it," Eliot agreed. 

"I mean you could try rubbing them," Parker said. "If you want. Sometimes that warms them up."

He chafed her feet through the blanket. It was nice. It didn't make any fucking sense, but it was nice. Parker hummed in satisfaction. 

They watched the movie. Hardison and Parker put all the dishes in the dishwasher and left the pans to soak. Eliot stood back, still at a loss when it came to describing what the hell was going on.

"Good night," Parker said, and they both smiled at him and disappeared into their room.

"Good night," Eliot said, and went to shower the last of the garlic off himself and wonder what his life had become. 

If Eliot, a few days later, had a dream that Parker and Hardison had wedged him between them and were kissing him all over as they took off all his clothes, well, that was between him and his subconscious and the sticky sheets he bundled into the washer. He sure wasn't thinking about it any more than that. Absolutely not. Not trying to, anyway, but a man couldn't keep a firm rein on his thoughts all the time. Especially not when it came to his dreams every couple of nights. 

At least his bed smelled fresh from all the laundry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Martha Stewart, for the [recipe for three garlic pasta](https://www.marthastewart.com/315983/three-garlic-pasta), and for the pasta itself, well, I love [Samin of Salt Fat Acid Heat](https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/pasta-alluovo).


	3. Three Bean Chili

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot takes Hardison fishing.

"You know what I was thinking?" Hardison said out of the blue one day when they were between jobs. 

"Do I look like a mind reader?" Eliot asked, which gave him a little pang, because it was something his momma used to say.

"I was thinking we never did get to go fishing," Hardison said, ignoring him. "You know, our special little date you set up."

"It wasn't a date," Eliot growled. "It was a regular boys' trip."

"Yeah, you know those are all dates, right?" Hardison drawled. 

Eliot frowned. "It's not a date when you eat at the bait shop." 

"Oh, you weren't gonna take me to the bait shop," Hardison said. "No sir. We were gonna bring all those fish home and fry 'em up and that's what you were going to feed me. Not some kind of bait shop sandwich with plastic cheese on it, all full of salmonella and what have you."

"You don't know what you're missing," Eliot said, shaking his head. "Eating at the bait shop is an experience." 

"It's not an experience I need to have," Hardison said. 

"Well, too bad, I guess," Eliot told him, and grinned. "Because we're going fishing."

"That's good," Hardison said, "because I did get us these fishing licenses." He brandished two pieces of paper. 

"You paid for 'em?" Eliot asked. Hardison nodded. "Huh. Figured you'd just hack the system or whatever."

"And have you take me on the kind of date where we get arrested?" Hardison demanded. It hit something inside Eliot every time Hardison insisted it was a date. He was going to do his damndest not to think about it, he decided. Hardison was still talking. "I'm not going down because some hat-wearing Game and Fish Commission dude needs to meet his quota for the month. Besides, you're paying for lunch and reels and worms or whatever. Seemed fair." 

"That's how I know it's not a date," Eliot said, squinting sideways up at Hardison. "Because when I take someone on a date, they don't pay for anything. It's all taken care of." It was just banter, obviously. He wasn't flirting with Hardison. But they'd always gone back and forth, just normal stuff, because he'd never been able to resist messing with a guy with a brain as big as Hardison's. 

"Yeah, yeah," Hardison said. "It's the twenty-first century, man. Everybody splits the check." He clapped Eliot on the shoulder. "Let's go fishing."

"Find us a spot," Eliot told him, and Hardison's eyes lit up a little. 

They found a sweet little spot out by the river and set up the folding chairs and the rods Eliot had bought at the bait shop. He could have rented them, but maybe if they owned the damn things, he'd be able to talk Hardison into going fishing again. They rarely got the chance to spend time together, just the two of them. Eliot had spent pretty much his whole childhood hanging out down at the river with the boys. It was nice to feel like he could salvage some of that with Hardison. 

"We are eating whatever is in those takeout boxes before I'm touching any worms," Hardison declared, and Eliot grinned at him. 

"Prepare for an experience you'll never forget," he told Hardison, and brought out two styrofoam containers of fried fish, slaw, and hushpuppies. There was beer to wash it down, and a couple of homemade fried pies to top it off — none of it the best Eliot had ever had, but all of it good. Something about the fresh air and the sound of the rushing river gave it an extra flavor. 

"All right," Hardison said when they were done and he'd licked the last of the peach filling from the pie off his fingers. "That wasn't the worst." 

"I told you," Eliot said. 

Hardison nodded. "You did. You really did." 

"And now," Eliot said, leaning forward and rubbing his hands together, "we fish."

"That is what we're here for," Hardison said. "Although I'll be honest with you, I kind of always though 'going fishing' was just a euphemism."

"For drinking beer?" Eliot said. "I mean, you're not wrong. There's a lot of beer drinking."

Hardison shrugged. "That and other things." 

"Uh huh," Eliot said. He wasn't going to pretend not to know what Hardison meant. He done a little bit of everything down by the river those last few summers at home, or at least experienced a little bit of everything. 

"Just sayin'," Hardison said, holding up his hands. 

"You thought I invited you down to the river to fool around, huh?" Eliot asked. 

"I mean, not this time," Hardison said. "I invited you." He rubbed his hands together. "So are we going to fish or what?"

"We are definitely going to fish," Eliot said. "Just...fish."

"You're gonna have to show me," Hardison said, and Eliot grinned. They started at the beginning: threading the line through the supports on the rod, tying on a hook, adding the worms that Hardison was so disgusted by. Eliot could have gotten other bait, but it was funny to watch Hardison squirm.

"Now cast your hook out into the water," Eliot said. 

"Okay," Hardison said, giving him one of those looks. "How do I do that?" 

"Just" — Eliot mimed flicking the rod — "put it out there." 

"Show me," Hardison said, and Eliot picked up his rod. "No, show me, like, move my arm. I'm not gonna learn by watching you. I'm one of those kinesthetic learners. I need to feel it." 

"Uh, sure," Eliot said. "I'll just, uh...here, stand up." He stepped up behind Hardison and kind of put his arms around him a little. Hardison was taller than he was and Eliot's face was almost against the back of Hardison's shoulder. Hardison was wearing one of those waffle-looking shirts and he smelled like bergamot and some kind of woodsy deodorant. It worked on him. "It starts with the shoulder, that's where the power comes from." He patted Hardison's shoulder and then ran his hand down Hardison's arm. "It ends in the wrist. That's the finesse." He moved Hardison's arm back and forth. Goddamn, Hardison was strong. It wasn't exactly like he ever forgot that, since it was part of the calculations Eliot made for every job — if shit went south, he could rely on Hardison to get out, mostly — but he never really considered the physical reality of it either, unless they were both working out at the same time. But Hardison's arms were hard with muscle underneath the fabric of his shirt, and Eliot could feel the power in them as Hardison's arm pivoted smoothly with his guidance. "Like this."

"Uh huh," Hardison said in a serious voice. "I think I'm getting it. Just back and forth." 

"Not just back and forth," Eliot said. He laid his arm out along the length of Hardison's and wrapped his fingers around Hardison's wrist. "It's all in the wrist, man. Just hold this down, pull back, and flick as you let go." Their arms moved together and Hardison's hook dropped neatly into the water. "Just like that." 

"I might need help again later," Hardison said. "You know they say practice makes perfect." 

"I'm here all day," Eliot said. "You want another beer? It might take a while to actually catch anything." 

"Why the hell not," Hardison said. Eliot cracked open two more beers and Hardison clinked his can against Eliot's as they sat down. "To finally going fishing."

Eliot drank a healthy sip and slid his can into the cupholder built into the arm of his chair. He cast out into the river. It wasn't hard, but it did take practice to get the little flick just right. He'd gotten plenty of practice over the years — he'd been fishing since he was little, maybe five, first with his granddaddy and then his daddy and then his friends. 

It wasn't like Hardison was wrong. He and his buddies had gone down to the river by themselves starting when they were twelve or so. They hadn't fooled around until they were in high school, when they'd go catch enough fish to come home with and then fill the rest of the hours with whatever they'd managed to steal out of their parents' liquor cabinets and cigarette packs. What the hell else were a bunch of teenage boys going to do but get tipsy and go skinny dipping? Whatever else had happened had just happened. Just a bunch of boys taking a test drive before the real deal. The fact that it had still happened after some of them had gotten laid was just a matter of opportunity. 

The military had been like that too, and then thieving, since then: Eliot and all his brothers-in-arms just trying to get by and have a little fun in their off-time. Keeping the world safe for democracy got lonely It wasn't gay to give another man a hand job. His own damn hand just got so boring after a while, and there hadn't been any women in his combat unit. Wrapping his fist around another man's cock had been a favor, nothing more, because the other guy had always done it for him too. And getting a blow job from another man wasn't gay either, because Eliot had never been the one blowing. It wasn't like he'd tangled his fingers in the guy's hair or kissed any of them afterward. Well, maybe a couple of them, but when they swallowed, it only seemed polite to thank them with a kiss and a hand job. It wasn't gay. It wasn't like there'd been tongue. Much. 

Okay, it was bi-curious at most. He'd probably thought about women anyway.

"Bet you I catch more fish," Hardison said, startling Eliot out of his thoughts. 

"No way in hell," Eliot told him. "You can't even cast by yourself yet."

"I had a good teacher," Hardison said. "You wait and see how many fish I catch."

"Fine," Eliot said. "Loser buys dinner."

"Loser cooks dinner," Hardison said. "Because you're going to be preparing all these delicious fish I catch." 

"Only if you win, which you're not gonna," Eliot said. "And if you do, you're gonna learn to clean a fish."

"That sounds terrible," Hardison said cheerfully. "How about you do it and I pretend to watch?"

"You've gotta catch at least five more fish than I do if you want to get out of cleaning duty," Eliot said. 

"Done," Hardison said. He pointed at Eliot. "No backsies."

"What are you, a child?" Eliot asked. 

"I am a fully grown adult man," Hardison said, wiggling his eyebrows. "Wanted in at least sixteen countries, and that doesn't even count the warrants."

"Hah," Eliot said. "I get it." He raised his beer to Hardison. Hardison grinned. Eliot felt a nibble on his line and ignored it. He didn't want to lose, but on the other hand, he wanted to see what would happen if Hardison won. The last time, he'd somehow ended up on their date, and it had been weird as hell, but also nice somehow. Eliot hadn't had any shortage of quote-unquote friends, but he hadn't been on a date in longer than he could remember. And he hadn't really felt like the third wheel, unless it was the third wheel of a tricycle. He'd felt like they wanted him there. Like it wouldn't have been the same without him. And now Hardison had basically insisted that this was kind of a date, whatever that meant.

Eliot had no fucking clue what the fuck was happening, if he was honest with himself. 

"I feel something," Hardison said, sitting up and alert in his chair.

"All right, jerk your wrist back to set the hook," Eliot told him. "Still feel it?"

"Yeah," Hardison said, focusing in on the rod and the water in a way that gave Eliot a little tingle someplace he couldn't describe. Watching Hardison work really was something else. 

"Keep the line taut," Eliot said. "Just reel it in slowly. If it fights, you tip the rod to give it a little room. Don't let the line out too far or the hook might slip and you'll lose it." He put his hand on Hardison's shoulder. The man had biceps, that was for sure. "Easy does it. Easy."

"This is as easy as I get," Hardison said, cranking the reel. 

"You got this," Eliot told him.

There were a few tricky moments, but at the end of it, Hardison was triumphantly holding up a pretty little bass. Eliot freed it from the hook and dropped it in a bucket of water.

"That's one," Hardison said, holding up one finger. "And how many do you have? None?"

Eliot pretended to look around and turned to flip Hardison off. "Hey, man. Look at that. I got one too."

"Ha ha," Hardison said sarcastically. 

They didn't catch a damn thing the whole rest of the afternoon. Eliot could have — he felt the fish nibbling, but he'd either let them go or yank at just the wrong moment or let too much line out. Hardison just didn't have the technique down. Eliot helped him cast a couple more times, but nothing seemed to want to take Hardison's bait. 

They both looked at the one fish in the bucket and then at each other.

"How's chili sound for dinner?" Eliot asked after a moment.

"Yeah," Hardison said. "I could go for some chili. Maybe some cornbread."

"Don't push your luck," Eliot said, though he'd already been thinking about it himself. 

"All right, all right," Hardison said. "I can eat my chili with Fritos like a regular person if you're not gonna put out."

Eliot tipped out the bucket into the river and the fish swam away. "No one in the history of food has ever used the phrase 'put out' in conjunction with the idea of cornbread, except to to say 'put out the cornbread on the table'."

"I'm an innovator," Hardison said. "Cutting edge." 

"Just help me carry all this shit to the truck," Eliot told him, rolling his eyes and dumping the ice from the cooler out onto the edge of the river. They'd finished the beer a couple of hours ago, at least. The rods and the cooler and the chairs all went in the back of his truck and he and Hardison piled back in and drove back to the Bridgeport. 

"Can't believe you didn't catch anything." Hardison said. "Fish in Oklahoma must just be easy, huh?"

"Guess so," Eliot said. "I sure caught more than my share back home." He smirked. 

"I can imagine," Hardison said, and suddenly that was all Eliot was thinking about: Hardison thinking about the things Eliot had done down by the river. "Good clean wholesome country fun, no doubt."

"Nothing cleaner than skinny dipping," Eliot said, glancing at Hardison and then back at the road. He could at least have a little say in what Hardison was imagining. If that happened to be Eliot buck naked and golden from the summer sun, so be it. He glanced at Hardison again and caught just the curve of Hardison's smile as Hardison licked his lips. Eliot felt a shock spark through him like static. 

What the fuck was he doing? Flirting with his teammate? With his other teammate's boyfriend? This wasn't a "what happens down at the river stays down at the river" situation. Parker and Hardison were pretty much all he had these days by way of friends he saw regularly. He couldn't mess with that. But Hardison was still smiling and seemed perfectly comfortable. 

"Hey, babe," Parker said when they came in. She was studying something on a laptop. She turned in her seat to kiss Hardison. Eliot felt that spark again and remembered his dreams. He looked away. She sure as hell hadn't offered him a kiss. Maybe he was imagining this whole thing. Maybe they hadn't ever been flirting with him and he'd messed up all their date night plans that last time with the pasta.

"Hell yeah, I did," Hardison told her. "More than Eliot too, which means he's making dinner again."

"Nice," Parker said. "For everybody?"

Hardison shrugged. "I assume Nate and Sophie are out for the night, since nobody's called me to demand I work technological miracles on short notice."

"Fine with me." Parker hopped off her chair. "What's for dinner?" 

"Chili," Eliot said. "And before you ask, no, it doesn't pair well with tiramisu."

"No more late-night tiramisu," Hardison said, putting his arms around Parker with an indulgent air. "You were bouncing off the walls for hours."

"You liked it," Parker told him, and her grin told Eliot everything he needed to know and more about exactly how much Hardison had liked it. 

"I didn't say I didn't benefit from it," Hardison allowed, "but sometimes I need my sleep, baby. There's only so much one man can do." 

"All right, all right," Eliot groused. It was too bad two men wasn't an option. Between them, surely they could tire out even a sugared-up and caffeinated Parker. 

"Ice cream," Parker decided. "Yeah, definitely ice cream." She flashed them a smile. "I'll be back."

"I'm gonna watch the master work," Hardison said to Parker, following Eliot into the kitchen. "Don't forget there's only so much room in the freezer."

"Yeah, yeah," she said. "If we eat it, that's not a problem."

"She's got a point," Eliot said. He washed his hands and flung a towel over his shoulder. 

"First I learned to fish," Hardison said. "Now I'm going to learn to cook." 

"Maybe you'll be better at cooking than you were at fishing," Eliot teased.

Hardison snorted. "Says the man who didn't catch even a minnow today."

"I was off my game," Eliot said. 

"Missing your old fishing buddies, huh," Hardison said, leaning on the counter.

"Something like that." Eliot dug in the cabinets for one of his big dutch ovens, the cast iron ones. "If you want to cook chili, you start out with a big old pot."

"Looks like you could do reps with that one," Hardison said, miming bicep curls.

"Just about," Eliot said. He set it on the stove and pulled out the cutting board and an onion. "Mince your onion up. I like it in little pieces so it gets all melty. Some people like big chunks of onion, but that's their business." He minced a few cloves of garlic alongside it and turned on the heat under the pan. "Heat first. That's important. When the pan gets hot, then we add the oil, then we wait for that to heat up."

"I'm taking notes in my mind," Hardison said, tapping his temple. "Heat. Oil. Onions. Got it."

Eliot went to the fridge. He'd been meaning to make chili anyway — he had a packet of mixed ground pork and beef from the butcher, which meant either chili or burgers in his world. He pulled that out and grabbed a couple of bell peppers while he was at it. Hardison watched him lay everything out on the counter. Eliot held his hand over the metal bottom of the pot. Hot enough, he thought. He added some oil and watched it run along the perfect unstained enamel. One of these days, maybe he'd be in one place long enough to break his cookware in. His momma's chili pot had had a chip out of the top and it never looked completely clean inside. Too many Sunday dinners and weeknight soups. He shook his head and cut the tops off his bell peppers. The oil in the pot was shimmering. He scraped in the onions and garlic and let them sizzle. The scent of them immediately filled the kitchen.

"First the noise," he told Hardison. "Then you stir." He started dicing the bell peppers, peered over at the onions, and handed Hardison the big wooden spoon. "Stir."

"You get bossy in the kitchen, don't you?" Hardison asked, but he came around the counter and stood next to Eliot.

"I'm bossy everywhere," Eliot told him. "And it's saved your life more than once."

"I didn't say I didn't like it," Hardison said, poking the onions with the spoon. Eliot threw some salt in on top of them.

"I said stir 'em, not move 'em around one at a time," he teased. 

"I had a lot of wrist action earlier," Hardison protested. "Go easy on me."

"Don't tell me you need me to teach you how to stir," Eliot said. "Smartest man I know. You can figure it out." He pulled a beer out of the fridge. 

"Didn't get enough earlier?" Hardison joked.

"It's for the chili," Eliot told him. He peered around Hardison at the onions. "Stir 'em around again." Hardison scraped the spoon through the onions obediently. They were translucent enough, Eliot decided, and added the peppers to the pot. 

"Keep stirring?" Hardison asked. 

"You got it," Eliot said. He unstuck the paper around the packet of meat and unwrapped it. 

"Mm," Hardison said unconvincingly, looking at the bloody rectangle.

"This is the good stuff," Eliot said. He dumped it into the pot. "Chop it up with the spoon as it turns brown." He mimed the action and Hardison mimicked him, separating the meat into chunks. 

"Big or little pieces?" Hardison asked.

"Depends on what you like," Eliot said. "Smaller's easier to eat. Picks up the flavor better. Bigger keeps more of the meat taste and feels different in your mouth." He tossed in more salt on top of the meat, added chili powder and black pepper and oregano. 

"Is that cocoa powder?" Hardison asked.

"Just a little," Eliot said, measuring it out on a teaspoon. "Gives it a little depth. That's what the beer's for too."

"And here I thought you were just rude," Hardison murmured. 

"That too," Eliot said. He added cumin to the pot, hesitated, and then threw in a little more. Hardison sniffed appreciatively.

"This smells good, man," he told Eliot.

"Thanks," Eliot said. 

"You use a recipe?" Hardison asked. 

"Nah," Eliot said. "Just know what it's supposed to be like." He collected a can of tomatoes and three different kinds of beans from the pantry. If he was going to keep losing bets, he was going to keep making three-of-a-kind recipes and see if they ever even noticed. Black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans made a hell of a chili anyway.

"Meat looks...brown," Hardison said. 

"Good," Eliot said. He cracked open the beer and poured most of it into the pan, where it bubbled and steamed up in a cloud that made Hardison cough. Eliot laughed and took a swig of what was left. He offered the last swallow to Hardison. Hardison took it without hesitation. Eliot couldn't stop looking at the way Hardison's lips pressed against the mouth of the bottle, right where Eliot's had been. Hardison drained the dregs and set the bottle on the counter, his eyes on Eliot's. Eliot shivered. There'd been looks like that down by the river, those summers in high school: lazy, certain stares full of breathless heat. He didn't know anymore if he was imagining things. 

He'd tried not to get in the way. They just kept including him. Maybe it was inevitable that he was having these kinds of thoughts about it. It had been a long damn time since anybody had made him feel as needed as the two of them did, or as wanted, or as welcome. Of course he had feelings about them now. Of course he dreamed about them.

"Eliot," Hardison said softly. "Earth to Eliot."

"Yeah," Eliot said, shaking it off. "Let the liquid cook off a little." He grabbed the can opener and opened the cans. He dumped the beans into a colander, all three cans, and rinsed them off. 

"Three bean chili, huh?" Hardison said. "When one or two beans just won't do."

"Adds texture," Eliot said. Hardison didn't know enough about food to contradict him, and anyway, it was sort of true. He grabbed a spoon and tasted it. "It ain't Texas chili, but it'll do." 

"Now what?" Hardison asked. 

"Now we turn the heat down and let it simmer," Eliot told him. "And I guess we make cornbread, if you still want it." 

"Hell yeah, I do," Hardison said. 

"Then turn on the oven," Eliot said, "and throw that cast iron skillet in there."

"This one?" Hardison held it up.

"That's the one," Eliot told him, already measuring everything into a bowl. Cornbread came together fast. When the batter was all mixed together, he pulled out the hot skillet, melted some butter in it, and poured in the batter. It hissed and spat a little. He pushed it back into the oven. 

"Kinda thought Parker would be back by now," he said. 

Hardison shrugged. "You know Parker and sugar. She might be back in five minutes. Might be two hours."

"This'll take about half an hour," Eliot said. 

"How will we pass the time," Hardison said, lounging against the counter. 

"Not fishing, I'm guessing," Eliot said. He leaned on the counter next to Hardison. "Not unless you've still got that game."

"I do, but now that I know what the real thing is like, I don't know if I can go back," Hardison said. He smiled over at Eliot, slow and sweet. "All that fresh air, you know?" 

"I'm back!" Parker said. She was carrying a tote bag that looked like it definitely contained more ice cream than three adults could or should eat. "I couldn't pick a flavor, so I just got all of them." 

"Attagirl," Eliot said, pushing himself off the counter. "Go big."

"And then come home," Hardison said, pulling Parker close. He took the ice cream bag from her and looked through it. "Wow. You really did get everything."

"I told you so," Parker said. "Is it dinner yet?"

"Almost," Eliot said. "Just waiting on the cornbread."

"Yum," Parker said.

"I helped cook," Hardison said.

"He did," Eliot confirmed. "He's a good little sous chef. Stirs and everything." 

"Sounds like you're a great team," Parker said, looking between them and smiling. "I like teamwork."

"Me too," Hardison said. He grinned at her and raised one eyebrow. 

Eliot tried really damn hard not to read anything into that. 

Dinner didn't feel like a date this time, but it did feel like family. They watched _Top Gun_ afterwards, because apparently that was what they did now: dinner and a movie. Parker gave up on any pretense and swung her legs over Eliot's lap almost the minute he sat down. She put her head in Hardison's lap and Hardison stroked her hair. Neither of them said anything or even seemed to notice anything was strange. Eliot sighed to himself and rested his hand on her shin. It wasn't like she'd never touched him before. She'd flung her arm around his shoulder or jumped into his arms or poked at him a hundred times over the years. It just felt different now.

Nothing about his life was remotely like what he'd imagined when he'd been in high school. But it was all right. He had a damn good life. 

"Pass me that fruity one," Parker said, sitting up so that she was leaning against Hardison, and Eliot handed her a gooey pint of ice cream. She dug her spoon into the container and grinned at him. He thought very briefly about how sweet she'd taste if he kissed her. 

"Share," Hardison told her, and Parker held the spoon to his mouth, and Eliot thought about kissing him too. He picked up one of the other pints of ice cream and occupied his mouth and his mind with other sensations, real ones, cold and the bitter bite of chocolate and the smooth feeling of butterfat. It helped crowd the fantasies out of his head, at least for a little while.

It could have been worse. He could have fallen for Sophie.


	4. Three Cheese Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parker bets Eliot he can't get a woman's number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the chapter that upset my wife.

"Bet you can't get her number," Parker said. They were at a bar, not their bar, doing research for Leverage on somebody antagonizing a potential client and research for the Bridgeport on what other bars were serving.

"What if I don't want her number?" Eliot asked, sipping his beer. It was decent. He and Hardison could and did make better, now that they'd stopped letting Parker sneak secret ingredients into the mix, but it wasn't bad. It gave him a few ideas. 

"Never thought I'd see Eliot Spencer out of the game," Hardison said to Parker. "Too domesticated to even get a single number."

"Domesticated by who," Eliot grumbled. 

"Just by circumstances, I guess." Hardison shrugged.

Eliot looked at them, his lip curling. This was all kind of poking a hole in his theories about why they'd been acting so strange lately, which at this point had boiled down to that maybe they felt a little bit like he was part of their relationship. Or maybe it was a test, to see if he was really interested in them. He guessed when it came down to it, he hadn't made any moves of his own. As much as he'd felt like he was speaking his piece by cooking a bunch of three-of-a-kind meals, he could see how those gestures maybe hadn't been as clear as he'd intended. But if that wasn't what they'd meant by any of this, he didn't want to fuck up the best thing he had going for him and the most important relationship in his life. So there he was, confused as hell, his dreams only getting more vivid and their knees pressing into his under the table. He could have sworn one of them had been playing footsie with him five minutes ago, but probably he'd just gotten in the way again. 

"Whose number?" he asked. 

Parker pointed. Eliot slid off his chair and sauntered toward the table. The woman Parker had gestured at was hot. More than that, she was gorgeous. Pretty much just his type: long legs and short shorts, freckles all over her light brown skin, a coiffed explosion of curls that surrounded a face looked like it should be on the cover of a magazine. Lord knew he loved a redhead. And it was only when he was actually walking toward her that Eliot realized he didn't want to sleep with her, which was kind of a goddamn first. Well, he did, in a theoretical kind of way. But when his mind's eye started previewing the evening, the inevitable climax of his night with the lovely lady at the table in front of him was him fumbling away before anything really started, his thoughts full of Parker and Hardison instead. It wasn't fair to her. His chest ached. He reached into his pockets, palming some cash. 

"Good evening, ma'am," he said to her, holding out his hand. She extended hers and he clasped her fingers like he was going to kiss them. 

"Ma'am?" she said, "That's a change from what I usually hear in this bar."

"Now that's a shame," he said. "A lady like you deserves more than a little respect."

"Hmm, respect," she said, tapping one finger against her lips. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"In the circles I run in," he told her. They smiled at each other. It was the opening steps of a dance he'd done a thousand times. He leaned in to murmur in her ear. "There's a hundred dollar bill in your hand. If you wouldn't mind doing me a favor, could you pretend I just said something awful to you?" 

"I wasn't exactly under the impression that's what you wanted," she murmured back in a low throaty voice that did make him shiver just a little. 

"I wish I could explain," he said. "I'm sorry I can't offer you the kind of evening you deserve, but at least you can have a nice night on me." 

"Mm, that is a pity," she said. 

"I promise if I saw you under different circumstances, I wouldn't be asking you to tell me no," Eliot said. 

"Then I kind of hope you come here often," she told him, and then drew back, her expression outraged. "How dare you? I can't believe you would say something like that to me! In front of my girlfriend!"

He let go of her hand and held up both of his, backing away. "Sorry. I'm sorry! I guess I had the wrong idea." 

She picked up her purse and her drink and stormed with her friend or girlfriend, shivering her eye at him as she left in what was almost a wink. Eliot stuffed his hands in his pockets and slouched back to the table where Hardison and Parker were sitting with their eyes wide. 

"Wow," Hardison said. "When you strike out, you really strike out."

"Good thing my baseball career wasn't any longer than it was, huh," Eliot said, hitching himself back onto the chair. 

"Hmm," Parker said. "That was weird."

"Sometimes even I get turned down," Eliot told her, picking up his beer again. "It's not that weird. It's happened before. It'll happen again." He drank his beer. "Guess I'll just have to console myself tonight."

Parker looked at Hardison, real couple shit that Eliot tried to ignore. He definitely wasn't feeling anything about the fact that he was excluded from that kind of communication. It was like they had a secret earbud he didn't have. He'd tried to be a good sport about it. He really had, and he was still trying. But it sucked. It sucked that they didn't seem to want him the way he'd come to realize he wanted them, despite the dinners and the movies and the easy way they included him in the rest of their lives. It sucked that he was out here learning things he wasn't sure he'd ever wanted to know about himself for the sake of these people and there was still a sign that said this far, no further. But it wasn't their goddamn fault either. He had no right to be part of their relationship, no matter how close they all were. No matter how many times they'd pulled each other's bacon out of the fire. No matter how hard his heart beat when he thought of them, or how many dreams he'd had the past few weeks of finding peace and pleasure in their arms.

He drained his beer. "Tell you what, I'm gonna get a car home," he told them, dropping a twenty on the table. "Guess I took that harder than I thought I would."

"Eliot, wait," Parker said, but he was already gone, shrugging his jacket on as he maneuvered his way through the bar. It wasn't a great setup, he thought. He'd've arranged the tables differently for a better flow, better lines of sight. But it wasn't his bar and he didn't get a say. There was a life lesson in there he didn't feel like learning tonight.

The Bridgeport was hopping. He checked on the staff real quick just to make sure that everything was going smoothly, but they just kept on doing their thing. Of course they did. They'd hired competent managers and made sure they paid well enough that people cared, despite Hardison's objections that the whole point of the place was quick turnover. The place ran fine while they were gallivanting across the world on all their Leverage jobs. Of course it ran fine while they were in town. If Eliot wanted to be needed, that was his own issue. He stomped up the stairs and went to his room. 

There wasn't a whole hell of a lot of consolation to be found there either. He was in the wrong kind of mood for the heavy bag, and getting drunk seemed like the easy way out. Maybe he needed another traditional approach to his frustration. He opened the laptop Hardison had set up for him, which most of the time sat untouched on the table. He felt almost a little gross typing "interracial threesome" into the search bar of his browser, but his usual keywords weren't turning up what he wanted, what he saw when he closed his eyes. He picked out a likely looking video, fast-forwarded past the sad attempts at plot, and unzipped his jeans. The faces weren't right and neither were the personalities, but if he squinted, he could pretend. 

He had just kind of started to get into it when he realized that Hardison had set up the laptop. Hardison probably had the network monitored. Hardison could very well have an alert set up or something so that he'd know if Eliot started watching porn, just for a fun joke. At very least, Hardison would be able to see his internet history, Eliot was pretty fucking sure, incognito browser or no. He and Parker might be staring at Hardison's phone watching exactly what Eliot was watching. He let go of his dick and slammed the laptop shut. For good measure, he unplugged it and took the battery out. He considered throwing it on the floor, but that would raise more questions he didn't want to answer.

Eliot sighed. A shower and bed. That was what he needed. Easy. Something he routinely did on his own. It wouldn't feel lonely at all, except that it did, because that was just the way of things tonight. He lay in bed, clean, and stared at the ceiling. Parker and Hardison had come home at some point, or at least he thought he'd heard a knock on his door. He wouldn't have answered even if he hadn't been naked and wet. If they'd really wanted him, they would have kept knocking.

He closed his eyes, but the kind of silence that was in his brain wasn't the kind that lead to sweet oblivion. It was the kind that echoed nothingness until he had to fill it up. He swore to himself and rolled out of bed.

Pizza. It felt like a night for midnight pizza. The restaurant had started keeping dough ready in the fridge for a couple of recipes. They wouldn't miss a pizza's worth of dough, and he had his own cheese in the apartment fridge. He threw on a long-sleeved t-shirt and shoes with his pajama pants, enough clothes to be presentable in the restaurant's kitchen, where health codes applied. They'd be closed, only the bar open, but there were protocols to be followed. But it was easy to slide in and slide out again, carrying a wad of dough in a container and ignoring all the people in the bar trying to do what he'd tried to do earlier. He wished them luck. He hoped they weren't all secretly in love with their coworkers and seemingly spoiled for any other kind of liaison.

Back in the apartment's kitchen, he shed the shoes and pushed up his sleeves. He put the pizza stone in the oven and turned it on high. The peel he needed to build the pizza on was in one of the high cabinets again. Hardison understood a lot of things about kitchen design, but he had definitely overestimated Eliot's reach. Eliot stretched as tall as possible, but he was going to have to get a chair or climb on the counter. Before he could turn around, there was a quiet sound behind him and Parker had her hands on his shoulders. He closed his eyes and laced his hands behind his back. She put her foot in his hands and boosted herself up, kneeling lightly on his shoulders. 

"What did you want?" she asked.

"Pizza peel," he said shortly. "Big wooden paddle." 

"Ah," she said, and he heard the slithery sound of the peel being pulled out of the cabinet. She passed it down to him and dropped easily to the ground.

"Sorry about that cabinet," Hardison said. "I'll get you a stepstool or something. Meant to have them build one into the baseboards, but you know how that goes." 

"Yeah," Eliot said. "Sure."

"Whatcha makin'?" Parker asked brightly. She perched on a bar chair next to Hardison. 

Eliot sighed and went to the sink to wash his hands. "Three cheese pizza."

"Three cheese pizza," Hadison mused. "The man's a genius." 

"Mozzarella," Eliot said, scattering cornmeal over the peel. "Ricotta. Parmesan. The real stuff, not that powdered shit out of a jar. It's a white pizza. No tomatoes." He tipped the dough out of the container and started stretching it over the peel. He could feel them watching him. "What?"

"Nothing," Hardison said. "You just left in a hurry. We were worried about you." 

"You seemed upset," Parker said, and Hardison shot her a look. She ignored him, watching Eliot instead. 

"I'm fine," Eliot said. "Didn't seem like my night is all. Figured I'd be better off at home."

"Kind of funny," Hardison said. "I never see you whiff that hard. What did you say to her?"

"Nothing," Eliot said, stretching the dough a little further. It was a rough circle, but it was round enough. "The usual."

"That was not the usual reaction to the usual," Hardison told him. Eliot pinched out one last edge of the dough. He let it rest while he stalked around the kitchen gathering the rest of what he needed. Nice olive oil to drizzle over the dough. Some pre-minced garlic because he just couldn't be bothered to chop anything for midnight pizza. Red pepper flakes. Basil snipped from the grow light herb garden Hardison had put in for him. Cheese, of course. 

"What can I say," Eliot said. "Guess she wasn't a usual gal."

"Eliot," Parker said, and Hardison put his hand on her arm. She frowned briefly at him. "Do you want us to go away?"

"Nah," he said. "You're here. You live here. There's plenty of pizza for three." 

"I mean, we do live here, but so do you." Hardison shrugged. "If you need some time by yourself, just say the word." 

Eliot drizzled the olive oil. He spooned garlic out of the jar and rubbed it into the crust with the back of the spoon. He ripped the mozzarella into chunks and grated the Parmesan into flakes. A fresh spoon went into the ricotta, because there was a honeyed ricotta dip he'd been thinking of making too and he didn't want the whole container to smell like garlic. He dropped clumps at random around the pizza and sprinkled salt and red pepper over the whole thing. 

"Eliot," Parker said again.

"It's fine," he said. He ripped the basil leaves and placed them strategically on the pizza. Coverage was important. Consistency. A little bit of the experience of the whole thing in every bite. Toby had taught him that. He wanted Parker and Hardison to feel good eating his food. "I lost the bet, though. Didn't get her number. Guess I should ask what my penance is."

"This is pretty much what I wanted," Hardison said. "Parker?"

"I mean, if you wanted to make cookies, I wouldn't say no," she told him. "But pizza's good." 

He couldn't stall anymore. He opened the oven and shifted the pizza off the peel onto the stone with a jerk of the wrist. He closed the oven again and set the timer. Then there was nothing to do but look up at them: Hardison's serious face, Parker's inquisitive eyebrow. 

"Look, sometimes I don't get the girl," Eliot said. "It's no skin off my nose."

"Sure," Hardison said. "Just seemed different tonight."

"I really thought she was into it," Parker said. "It being you, I mean, and sex. I guess I still don't read people that well." 

"It happens," Eliot said, feeling guilty. He didn't like lying to Parker, or even misleading her, but at this point, it seemed like the alternative was telling them he'd asked a very pretty woman to reject him publicly because he'd realized he was in love with them, and that wasn't a great option.

"On the plus side, this means we get you all to ourselves," Hardison said. 

"And pizza," Parker said. "I mean, I hope you weren't planning on making pizza for her, if she said yes. I don't think I want to share that part of you. Maybe if it was someone we knew, that would be different."

"Got it," Eliot said with a pang. "No midnight pizza on the first date." 

"Are you lonely?" Parker asked. She looked at Eliot and then at her hands and then back up at Eliot. 

"How could I be," Eliot said, squinting at her. "I've got the two of you to cook for all the time. Watch movies with. Create a gastropub menu with. Robin Hood around the world with. I don't have time to be lonely."

Parker looked a little relieved. 

"Go fishing with," Hardison said. "Don't forget. We go fishing now."

"I just know there's...stuff...you don't do with us," Parker said. "Sex stuff. Romantic stuff. And it kind of seems like you haven't been doing it with other people very much lately either. I want you to be happy." She looked at Hardison. "We want you to be happy."

Eliot pasted on a smile. "Look at that. Happy." 

"Eliot, man," Hardison began, but then the timer rang.

"Ah," Eliot said. "Pizza." He grabbed mitts, snapped off the gas, and pulled the stone out of the oven. The pizza was nicely crisp when he ran the roller through it. He cut it into six pieces and dished it onto three plates. "Pizza that I'm not making with anybody but y'all." 

"Do you want to watch a movie?" Parker asked, leaning toward him. 

Eliot leaned in. "Is this just a ploy to get me to make cookies too? Even though it means staying up until a ridiculous hour?"

She pursed her lips. "Maybe." 

"Fine," Eliot said, "but I'm telling you what to do and you're doing it. If Hardison can make chili, you can make cookies. And we're watching _Inception_."

"Hell yeah, we are," Hardison said, grabbing an orange soda out of the fridge. Eliot got a beer for himself and raised his eyebrows at Parker. She nodded, and he got a second beer for her. While he was there, he put the butter on the counter to soften. They piled onto the couch. Eliot found himself in the middle this time, with Parker's shoulder pressed against his on one side and Hardison's knee jostling his on the other. They paused the movie when the pizza was finished, and Parker made cookies under Eliot's watchful eye.

"They're good, right?" Parker said. "I did good."

"They're almost as good as mine," Eliot told her. 

"I'm proud of you, baby," Hardison said, and kissed her. Eliot looked away, down at his cookies. 

Maybe next time, he'd take the pretty woman home, and find a way to be the man he'd always been. Easily kissed, easily touched, and the next day, nothing more than a fond memory. He had this much of them. It was more than he'd had of anybody else in a long time. Maybe it was enough.


	5. Tres Leches Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot makes a bet or two with himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the episode summary says that Aimee is Eliot's high school sweetheart, but he's from Oklahoma, not Kentucky, and given that he says it's been 8 years and he's got to be closer to 30 than 25, my headcanon is that he was in Kentucky after his first two-year tour, so he was 20 when he and Aimee were making promises to each other.

Eliot was shaving when he decided something had to give. They'd just gotten back from the latest job. He'd grown out the beard a little for the character he'd been playing and it was a relief to trim it back and look like himself again. At the same time, being Eliot had its own complications, like pining after his partners. It had been a couple of weeks since he'd bribed a woman not to sleep with him. Not his proudest moment, but far, far from his worst. He'd lost four bets already. Maybe it was about time he made one with himself. He looked in the mirror, square in his own eyes, and shook his head. "They'll never ask you the question you're waiting to hear," he told himself. "And that's not a bet, that's a fact."

It wasn't easy to face even coming from himself, but the sooner he got used to it, the easier it would be to get back to his old habits. It wasn't like he'd ever really pictured himself in any kind of long-term relationship anyway, not since he'd realized he was never going to keep the promises he'd tried to make to Aimee. The life he lived didn't make it easy, just to start with. Twenty-year-old Eliot Spencer, transplanted from Oklahoma to Kentucky, had still believed in a lot of things that thirty-year-old Eliot Spencer couldn't fathom. God. Good. A love that could endure. He'd found that last one again, in some form or fashion, but not the one he'd dreamed of then. He was still damn lucky to have as much as he had of Hardison and Parker's affection. He knew by now the world wasn't going to hand him any kind of happily ever after all tied up in a bow, even if it was his birthday. 

A birthday was just another day he happened to wake up, this past decade or so, but it was as good a moment to make a change as any other. 

"You're getting fucking old, man," he told his reflection, but damn if that wasn't the best case scenario. 

It felt good to be back, anyway. He never had gotten around to finding an apartment of his own, because it seemed like every time he thought about it, they headed off on another job and there wasn't much point. The Bridgeport was home enough. He was still discovering little things that made him think Hardison had planned on talking him into staying if he had to. It wasn't just the heavy bag and the nice kitchen with the mostly-right-height cabinets and all the little conveniences that made a chef's life easier. It was the drawers built in under his bed that had a place for his knives, the massage jets in the shower that actually hit at the right angle to soothe his sore muscles, the whole damn restaurant downstairs that lined up neatly with Eliot's vague dreams of retirement. Hardison had known that Eliot liked his bed against the wall, for that matter, and had it built in so it looked classy and reduced the lines of approach. Eliot was welcome. He knew that. He was wanted. Just not the way he'd started to hope he'd be.

It didn't matter. He was going to go to the kitchen his teammate had built him and make a cake. Tres leches, because he'd had a slice while they were on the job, with the thought that the border would be a place to get something better than he'd had in Portland, but what he'd been served had been mostly Cool Whip and fruit filling out of a can, and he still felt unsatisfied about it. He was going to make a good tres leches, with real whipped cream and real fruit, and then he was going to skip the candles and just dig into it. Maybe it wouldn't be authentic — god knew he knew plenty of Oklahoma recipes that weren't right without Cool Whip or Velveeta or some kind of canned soup — but it would be the flavors he'd wanted.

First, there was coffee and a big bowl of oatmeal, because oatmeal was another thing he'd learned to appreciate as he'd left his twenties behind. It stuck to the ribs and kept him going. And then there were eggs whipped to stiff-peaked froth in the mixer, and flour carefully folded in. Sponge cake was fussy, but it would soak up the three milks that made it tres leches better. He cut up strawberries while the layers were baking and tossed them in a little pan with a splash of lemon juice and a lot of jam sugar. Jam was easy. Jam was straightforward and sweet. He needed a little more of that. 

He heard a door opening down the hall and then Parker wandered in, barefoot, her ponytail fuzzy. She was wearing what had to be a pair of Hardison's sweatpants, because they were falling off her hips and pooling around her feet, and some kind of thin bra that was basically just a couple of triangles. It looked like the pajamas version of a bikini, if he was honest. It looked good on her. Everything looked good on her. He pushed down the little stir of longing inside him. Parker wasn't his girl to be looking at, no matter how many times she cuddled against him during movie night. 

"Coffee," she mumbled, stumbling toward him like some kind of zombie. He poured her a cup and stirred some milk and sugar into it, pressing it into her hands. She closed her eyes and sipped. "Ahhhhh."

"You're welcome," he told her. 

"Thank you," she said, rolling her eyes a little. She yawned. "Didn't mean to sleep that late." 

"Yeah, me either," he said. "Guess we're getting old."

She tilted her head from side to side, her neck cracking. "Ugh. Don't remind me."

He'd never told them his birthday. He hadn't celebrated it in a long time. Parker didn't seem to know, or at least she didn't say anything about how he specifically was getting older. Eliot relaxed and stirred his jam. Parker rummaged around in the pantry for her cereal and poured a bowl. She sat at the counter, eating and watching him. She sniffed the air and rose up on the rungs of the chair to peer over the stove. 

"Hot fruit?" she asked.

"It's jam," Eliot said. "Why would I just make hot fruit?"

"I don't know," Parker said. "I don't know why you do a lot of things when you're cooking. Why are you making jam?"

"Filling for my cake," Eliot said. 

"A cake," she said. "What's the occasion?"

He shrugged. "Finished another job, I guess. Easier than buying a house when it comes to celebrations."

"I should buy another house," she mused. The door down the hall opened again. Eliot poured another cup of coffee. "Somewhere with a beach. Or just stack up all my money in a vault and lay on it. You could buy a sword."

"I don't need another sword right now," he told her.

She scoffed. "Like you can ever have too many swords. That's like saying I could have too many harnesses."

"I can't imagine that," Hardison said, coming up behind her and wrapping her up in his arms. Hardison at least was wearing a shirt with his shorts, even if it was mostly unbuttoned. Eliot didn't think he could have handled both of them shirtless. "I mean, there are plenty of recreational harness-like accouterments you don't have, if you know what I mean, and I, for one, would be happy to contribute to that collection." Eliot pushed the coffee over. "Thanks, man."

"No problem," Eliot said, opening the oven and testing his sponges. They came out nice and clean and he pulled them out and put them on racks to cool. The jam was done too. He took it off the heat. 

"Cake, huh," Hardison said, sniffing appreciatively. "What's the occasion?"

Parker nudged him with her elbow. "That's what I said."

"A man doesn't need a reason to bake a cake," Eliot grumbled. "I had that piece of cake at that restaurant while we were conning that oil exec and I thought I could do better. That's all."

"All right, all right," Hardison said, making a calming gesture with his hands. "Just wondered." 

Parker poured the leftover milk from her cereal into her coffee and sipped. "Mmm." 

Hardison shook his head. "Baby, you're either the world's greatest innovator or some kind of mad scientist, but either way, people aren't ready for you." 

Eliot looked at them smiling at each other and his heart hitched in his chest. He really was getting softer as he got older. It had been a hell of a long time since he'd wanted that kind of thing: all those little secrets people in love had, all the coded signals, all the quiet jokes. At least he had it professionally. It was better than the nothing he'd had for a long time before that. He believed in his team now. Whatever Nate and Sophie decided, the three of them would work together for a long time. Probably as much forever as he got, anyway.

"What do you want to do today?" Hardison asked Parker.

"I don't know," she said. "I kind of wanted to go on that Portland Secrets Walking Tour, but I don't think any of the secrets are treasures or ghosts." 

"We could invent our own secret walking tour," Hardison offered. "All treasures, all ghosts, right this way."

"Hmmm, I was thinking mostly banks," Parker said.

"Funny how that happens," Eliot said. "Every single time." 

"I know what I like," Parker said, and smiled at him. Eliot grinned briefly at her and then looked away. He got out a big measuring cup instead and started measuring half and half into it. 

"What kind of cake is this?" Parker asked. 

"Yeah, it looks like it violates dipping etiquette," Hardison teased.

"Tres leches," Eliot said. He got cans of evaporated milk and condensed milk out of the pantry and added them to the measuring cup. 

"Uno, dos, tres," Parker said, pointing at herself, Eliot, and Hardison. "How about that?"

"Three milks, huh," Hardison said. "Maybe he can use your cereal milk idea next time."

"Hah," Eliot said. "Although a little cinnamon in it wouldn't be bad." 

"Three milks," Parker said, ticking it off on her fingers. "Three cheeses on the pizza. Triple chocolate cookies. Three garlic pasta. Lots of threes lately."

"Three bean chili," Hardison said, pointing at her and then Eliot. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to send us a message."

"And what kind of stupid message would I be trying to send with food," Eliot grumbled, stirring the milk mixture together with a big spoon. 

"Beats me," Hardison said with a shrug. "Maybe you've been really hungry. Three times as hungry."

"Guess I have been," Eliot said. "Seems like the only explanation that makes any sense. Can't see anybody with a brain trying to send any kind of message with food." He wished he had something he could slam around a little, but the milk would only spill, and the cakes weren't cool enough to turn out of their tins yet. 

"Alec, stop," Parker said, turning to Hardison. "I don't think this is fun anymore."

Hardison sat back in his chair with his coffee. "Your call, baby." 

Parker slid out of her seat. She came around to Eliot and took the spoon out of his hand. 

"That probably needs to go in the fridge," Eliot said as she pushed the measuring cup of milk gently to the side.

"Okay," she said, smiling gently, and put it away on the shelf in the fridge. She closed it and leaned against the door. He looked back at her, a funny ache in his chest.

"Eliot," she said. 

He frowned. "What." 

She pointed at herself. "One." Hardison. "Two." She poked her finger into Eliot's chest. "Three."

"Yeah, I can count too," he said. 

She sighed and hitched herself up on the counter, then hooked her foot behind his leg and pulled him closer. "I don't think you're listening to me."

"You're not saying much," he grumbled. He tried and failed not to look at her breasts in their flimsy little bra. 

"One." She pointed to herself and stared at him.

"With you so far," he told her. 

"Two." She pointed at Hardison, who waved at them.

"Heyyy," he said. Eliot nodded back. The V of Hardison's shirt hung open and showed his chest. It was a nice chest. Eliot kind of wanted to touch it and kind of wanted to just rest his head against it. Longing for them was a lot more exhausting than he'd expected.

"Two. I get it." He pointed at himself. "Odd one out."

"No, Eliot," she said, and put her hand over his heart. "Three."

"Parker," he said, "I don't know what you're saying." 

"I'm saying you're one of us," Parker told him. "You're part of us." 

"Yeah, we're a team," Eliot said. "Kinda been a team for a while now." 

Parker sighed and looked over her shoulder at Hardison. "You were right. He is pretending not to understand."

"I hate to say I told you so," Hardison said, "but I kinda told you so." 

"You should have let me throw him off a building," Parker said to Hardison.

"Baby, that is not as seductive as you think it is," Hardison said. "Also, how were you going to do that in a sneaky way?"

"Listen," Parker said to Eliot, her hand still firmly planted on his chest. "I'm not great at people. We know this. But I've been working on it, and it's not fair if you tell me you're not feeling what you're feeling, because we're a team and you're supposed to help me."

"Okay," Eliot said slowly. 

"So I'm going to tell you what I see," Parker said, "and you're going to tell me the truth. Can you do that?"

Eliot glanced at Hardison. "I can."

"You think it's me and Hardison," Parker said, "and you're wrong. It's me and Hardison and you." 

"Yeah," Eliot said, "I already said we're a team."

Parker looked like she was about to snarl at him. She put her hands around his face and pulled him forward. "Eliot. You love us. Both of us."

"Yeah," he said, almost inaudibly, because he always told Parker the truth when it mattered.

She smiled like an angel, all grace, like she could wash him clean. "We love you." Her thumbs stroked his temples. "Not two and one. Three." 

"I don't think that's how that works," he whispered. "And that's the truth."

"It is for us," she whispered back, and kissed him. 

Well. He'd lost his own bet, but at least it felt like he'd won something. He kissed Parker back for a moment, then drew back a little, but she pressed up against him again and pulled him close. Hardison wasn't screaming at him, so Eliot leaned into her, let one hand settle on the back of her neck and the other on her hip, and felt her mouth open against his. The was a little too much for his short-circuited brain. He drew back. Parker's hands were still on his face and she was grinning at him, bright as a sunrise.

"All of these bets," he started, "were they just some kind of elaborate trap?"

"I mean, the first one was just because I wanted cookies," Parker said, "but after that, yeah. I mean, triple chocolate cookies might have been a fluke, but you're not the most subtle person. It felt like a clue." 

Hardison had come around the counter while Eliot was still kissing Parker. "When you messed up driving on purpose, we kind of felt like we had to see how far it was going to go." 

"You knew I went the wrong way on purpose," Eliot said. 

"Yeah," Hardison said. "It was pretty obvious."

"And you made me take you fishing," Eliot said.

"That was definitely a date," Hardison said, looking smug. "You put your arms around me and everything. Bought me lunch." 

"And you," Eliot turned back to Parker, "tried to get me to pick somebody else up. And you don't know why I was confused?"

She shrugged and stroked her hands down his chest. "I wanted to know if you were still interested in other people. You kind of seemed like you weren't anymore, but I wasn't sure. And she was _really_ pretty. Seemed like the best way to test my theory." 

"She was really pretty," Eliot said to himself.

"Yeah," Parker said. "I mean, I would have kissed her. Hardison would have kissed her." She beamed at him. "But now we get to kiss you. If that's okay."

"Here's my question," Eliot said, leaning against her, but not kissing her. "Why, and let me just say, the fuck, did you not just tell me this instead of executing some convoluted scheme? Were you the ones who were hungry? Because you could have just ordered a damn pizza and said, 'Hey, Eliot, come kiss us' instead of sneaking around about it and putting your feet in my lap and making dinner some kind of secret date."

Parker cocked her head. "Would you have done it?"

He made a face. "I bet you could have talked me into it." 

"We didn't want to spook you, baby," Hardison murmured.

"Spook me?" Eliot wrapped his fist in Hardison's shirt and yanked him closer. His heart skipped. If the stuff he'd done with guys before hadn't been gay (ah, god, he knew it had been now and he'd known it then too, but still), this sure as hell was gonna be, in a no-takebacks kind of way. He felt almost giddy. "I don't spook that easy. I'm not a _horse_ , Hardison." He kissed Hardison fiercely and Hardison kissed back, and Eliot felt something inside him catch and go up in flames, wild as a prairie fire.

"Well, that's good," Hardison said when Eliot released him. "'Cause I only ride cowboys."

"Were you just waiting that whole time to say that?" Eliot growled.

"I forgot it a couple of times," Hardison said, grinning. "Got a little distracted for some reason."

"Yeah, well, count on being a lot more distracted," Eliot said. "Because I don't mind telling you I've got some frustration to work out."

"Bring it on," Hardison said with a smirk. 

"My turn," Parker said impatiently, and Eliot turned and kissed her. She twined her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and he lifted her off the counter and held her. She laughed in delight and kissed him again. Eliot turned to pin her between his body and Hardison's and stopped. Hardison was reaching into the too-tall cabinet and pulling down a wrapped package.

"I can't believe you thought we didn't know it was your birthday," Parker said. She unwound herself from him and dropped lightly to the floor. 

"I guess I thought you didn't care," Eliot said. 

"Oh, please," Parker said. "The only reason we haven't thrown you a party the last few years is because Hardison thought maybe you were sensitive about it. I told him if we fed you enough cake, you'd get over it." She looked at him with bright eyes.

"Yeah, you're not exactly a closed book," Hardison said, draping one arm around Parker. "Not that anybody's a closed book to me, but this was a pretty easy pull." He held out the present. "I feel like your main gift is right here" — he gestured to himself and Parker — "but we got you a little something anyway."

Eliot ripped open the paper and opened the box inside. Wrapped in tissue paper was a leather cuff with a wolf's head embossed onto it. It was buttersoft on the inside and looked like it would fit perfectly. 

"I love it," he said. 

"Parker knows a leather guy, apparently," Hardison said. "Got it done custom." 

"There's more," Parker said. "Not a lot more. It turns out it's kind of hard to shop for people who can just buy themselves whatever." She looked briefly shifty. "Although cash always makes a nice gift, in case anybody else has a birthday or something."

Underneath the cuff was a framed photograph of the three of them, draped over each other in some hotel room, fast asleep. He didn't remember which years-ago job it was from, but he was sure Sophie had taken it. It had her eye, somehow. Sophie, looking at them, had known all along. He looked at it, feeling his mouth curve up at one end in a tender smile.

"Wow," he said. "This has been going on a while, huh?"

"Slow and steady," Hardison said. He took the box out of Eliot's hands and put it on the counter. "Very slow." 

"Too slow," Parker said. "I was kind of hoping there'd be more kissing? Since we can finally kiss now." She pulled Hardison in with one hand and Eliot with the other and they illustrated in a way that made Eliot's knees weak. 

"Guess I could let the cakes cool a while longer," Eliot said, pretending to think about it and knowing that maybe they wouldn't have any cake until tomorrow. That was all right. He'd still have something to celebrate tomorrow. That was a feeling he hadn't had in a while. 

"Bet you this is gonna be the best birthday I've had in twenty years," he said, and there was no way he could lose that one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My wife coffeesuperhero gave me the horse joke and unending moral support.
> 
> Eliot will get his cake later, but first they're going to kiss a lot. Don't worry, he'll have time to soak the cakes later, probably while Hardison is kissing the back of his neck and Parker is stealing spoonfuls of jam and plotting about the whipped cream he'll make when the cakes are properly soaked. 
> 
> I don't know if there's any evidence of Eliot's birthday, because I am new to the show and have not done my research, but for my purposes, it's sometime before The Rundown Job (which in my head and all sensible realities occurs after The Low Low Price Job). 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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